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Porter and Stout challenge - big prizes!

Iīve got tired of trying to guess what old beers would have tasted like by looking at the recipes. The obvious solution would be to brew them myself. But thereīs one slight problem with that: Iīm a crap brewer. So I thought: "why not get someone else to do it for you?".

I learnt long ago that you donīt get anything for nothing in this world. You need an incentive.

Hereīs what the lucky winner will receive:

* free beer for one day in Wildeman
* 10 bottles of their choice from my cellar
* 50 euros to spend in De Bierkoning

"What do I have to do to win this wonderful prize?" I hear you ask. Donīt worry, no sacrificing of first borns is required. You just have to brew two beers.

Not any two beers, obviously. One Porter and one Stout. Brewed to specs for the 19th century beers that I have here:

One Porter and one Stout from the same brewery and from the same year. For example, Griffin Brewery Rg Porter and SSS Stout from 1867. Or Barclay Perkins TT Porter and Brown Stout (BSt) from 1812.

The rules are:

* the malt percentages must be as listed
* the hopping rate 25% less than listed (to take into account the fact usually at least 30%, and sometimes more than 50%, of the hops were 2, 3 or even 11 years old)
* OG must be as listed (within a point or two)
* the only hops allowed are Goldings
* no ingredients allowed other than malt, hops, water and yeast, except for sugar to prime the bottles

For mashing temperatures, etc I would suggest sticking to what Loftus recommends:

revised rules

I had wondered how many entries I would get. Now it looks there will be definitely at least two, I think its fairest on the participants to judge the beers against each other.

These are the revised rules:

- closing date May 31st
- judging Saturday 2nd May
- judging by a panel of myself and at least one other judge
- winner to be determined by:
a. general beer quality, using my usual scoring system (75%)
b. how well the beers fit with the specs (25%)